Truth or dare

Since today is President's Day, I had the luxury of having the day off from work (weird, right?) Mommy B... not so much. And apparently, Alli's daycare takes all the same days off that I do - which means that so far in 2012 I've had to play Mr. Mom twice... and it's not even March!

Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with Alli more than anything in the world, but entertaining her for an entire day can be exhausting to say the least. She really is a handful - not in a misbehaving sort of way (which I'm sure is right around the corner with the Terrible Twos), but because she is so full of energy. She's so inquizitive, so curious and yet so determined. Even for a "young" parent like myself, keeping up with her all day is a full-time job that requires a lot of stamina. Today was a perfect example...

Mommy B got up at her usual 4am and was out the door by 4:30 (I know, I cringed as I wrote that, too). Alli woke up at 6:30, which is typically when she likes to rise and shine. We had a typical morning of her eating a lot of my breakfast and me powering through an hour of Peter Pan Returns on Jake and the Neverland Pirates followed by an hour of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Good times.

Thanks to the completion of Alli's "new" bedroom, she's been having a lot of fun in there by herself lately. This afforded me the opportunity to grab a shower and get dressed while she played in her kitchen and ran around in Mommy B's bathrobe. I texted Mommy B and we made plans for me to bring Alli to her work and we all would meet up for a lunch date. Everything was on schedule... until Alli fell asleep in the car before I even made it downtown! She never takes a morning nap anymore, especially when she's at daycare.

Since I didn't want to wake her up while she was snoozing, I basically drove all the way downtown and all the way home for nothing. Talk about burning $3.50/gallon gas for nothing... ugh! So we came home and she had lunch at 11:30 (as usual). She only slept for about 30 minutes in the car, but I knew what was in store the rest of the afternoon. Would she take another nap... or not?

Well, I tried putting her down for a nap around 2pm to see if she would pass out like she normally does in the afternoon, but she had other plans. After whining for a few minutes, she eventually got quiet. I thought I was in luck, but my luck changed when I went to go check on her. Not only was she not asleep, but she managed to somehow pull of both socks and her pants. She's never done that before, ever. My first thought was that the conversation between Alli, Violet and Pooh Bear must have grown stale and they resorted to an innocent game of Truth or Dare. Since Violet (who's a stuffed dog) only has a collar and Pooh only wears a shirt, Alli was the odd-man-out, as they say. To be honest, my real first thought was that she was losing to her stuffed animals in a game of strip poker, but I didn't see any playing cards in her crib.

Luckily, Mommy B had arrived home just in time to witness Alli's striptease, so we pulled her out of bed and brought her downstairs. Yeah, she was nowhere near sleepy. Somehow we managed to keep her awake for another couple of hours - but in order to keep her somewhat on schedule we decided to make ourselves dinner (so Alli could share, of course) early. I'm talking old-people-at-Captain-D's-at-4:30pm early.

Then it was time for Alli's obligatory after-dinner poop - which made it her fourth of the day. Needless to say, I passed her over to Mommy B to clean up. Did I forget to mention that she only had one yesterday? She must have been saving them up for her teachers at daycare... too bad she doesn't understand the concept of holidays yet. OK, sorry for the gross stuff, but changing three poopy diapers before noon can really drain a person.

We managed to get her off to bed by 6pm, which isn't much earlier than her normal bed time. She didn't fall asleep right away, but I think by then she was running on pure adrenaline. I have no idea how she stayed awake for almost 12 hours with only a 30-minute nap. But now Followers can understand how much energy it takes to keep up with my precious little angel. I certainly hope Baby M #2 is a little more... reserved.